Am I the only one....

[Petersmamma]

Who learned about this recession through various forms of media? :

What I mean here is that I had noticed that food prices were going up a bit, and gas prices were going up, but gas prices are ALWAYS going up, and the food thing has been steady and gradual for about a year now, IME.

We don't really DO much.....we are trying to pay off debt, so we haven't gone on a vacation, or bought many new clothes, or new....ANYTHING, really. Plus, we have a TON of debt, so we don't invest or contribute to retirement.

With all those factors, I just didn't even realize there was a recession until I started reading things in the news and seeing posts about it here.

Am I the only one?

Also, it really opened my eyes that recessions actually gain momentum because of all the talk.....I was going about my normal life, now I've stopped spending even that little bit I was spending because I am now aware there is a recession!

[xekomaya]

If I didn't read the wall street journal, I probably would not know about it at all. Well, maybe thats not totally true because DH is in development and has been in several strategical meetings this year.

We really haven't had massive job loss yet in much of America, so its not really surprising you didn't know/notice. Gas and food have been going up in price, but thats all most of us have seen, and its been happening for a while now.

If/when the job loss begins, thats when you'll feel like you're finally "seeing" the recession. I'm still trying to keep a little hope that it won't happen or won't be very wide spread...

[RetroGeekGirl]

I realized that there was a recession when the universuty that I work for announced that there was not only a hiring freeze, but that layoffs were likely. Its a state school, so job security is something that was always taken for granted here. Once that was gone, I realized how bad things are getting.

[KariM]

I think the impact is very regional.

Talk to the folks in Michigan and they'll tell you different things than folks in an area where there is job growth.

I know my friends and family in Michigan have been hard hit for about two years now. Lots and lots of job losses and foreclosures there.

[Ruthla]

If I hadn't read about posts on MDC such as "how are you dealing with the economic crunch" I wouldn't have noticed either.

SSI is the same no matter what the rest of the country is doing, and I get a cost of living increase every January.

Child support is the same as long as my ex has a job- which he does at the moment.

I noticed that Trader Joe's eggs are now $1.19 instead of $.99 but then I notcied that other stores also increased their egg prices, so TJ's is still the cheapest. And this month my Food Stamps went up- I'm not sure if that's because of the general increase in food prices or because of my specific situation (lowered child support payments because X and I finally recalculated based on his current income, rather than his income from 10 years ago. Now he can afford to pay me consistently.)

So, no, this isnt' affecting me at all. I still don't drive very much and only fill my gas tank about once every 2 weeks. I still don't buy much besides food and other household essentials such as toilet paper and detergent. When I have a bit of extra money I'll splurge and go to the thrift store for some "new" clothes.

Why on earth would I spend less money just because I read that other people have less money?

[Petersmamma]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

Why on earth would I spend less money just because I read that other people have less money?

Well, for me, and I'm sure, for others, it's because reading/hearing about how things are "about to get bad" scare me and make me want to hold onto as much as I can.

But I suppose if you don't spend too much to begin with, you can't really cut. But that is scary, too, since that means you don't have a cushion if things get bad for you.

[BetsyS]

My dh works in building materials. Business is way off. If people can't sell existing houses, then new houses don't get built. If there are less new houses, then there is less business.

His company has laid off 1/3 of its work force, commissions are down over 30% (1/3 of his income), and everyone in the company had to take 25% pay cuts in their salary this year. Combined with commission being down, we've taken a major pay cut.

Oh, yeah, and he got transferred this year. We're waiting on our house to sell in order to move and all be together all week long (he is home on weekends now). Our house is priced $5000 below what we paid, and no offers yet. We're worried about how much we'll loose on it.

So, yeah, I feel it.

[velochic]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

<snip>SSI is the same no matter what the rest of the country is doing, and I get a cost of living increase every January.

Child support is the same as long as my ex has a job- which he does at the moment.
<snip>
And this month my Food Stamps went up
<snip>
So, no, this isnt' affecting me at all.

Well, most definitely if your income sources, which are stable, also increase with the cost of living, you don't feel any crunch at all.

The problem is that many people in the country are *not* getting cost of living raises, yet their costs of living (even for the basics) are increasing. Other things that are affecting people:

- variable loan rates increasing
- foreclosures on homes mean people are losing their investments
- property tax increases make house payments unaffordable
- people are losing their jobs/ taking lower paying jobs
- people are not getting raises

... and the list goes on. So, yes, many have been feeling the crunch now for a year or more. We also personally don't feel it, but I can certainly *see* it. Yes, from the media, but also simply from talking to friends around the country.

The old joke is "It's a recession if your neighbor loses his job... it's a depression when you loose your job."

[Denvergirlie]

Hasn't affected me at all.

Sure milk is a bit more at the grocery store, but other than that I still find great sales, so my grocery budget hasn't changed at all.

I work from home, so fill my truck with gas once a month, no change, it's still close to $60 a fill up.

My work is crazy insane busy as it every year at this time. It will slow down around Thanksgiving. (marketing company). We are also hiring people left and right, every month we seem to bring some new person on board.

We all got 5% raises in February. However, the bonus pool was nill, so no bonuses this year, but that was foreseens from soem bad investiments in 2007.

My BF, his business is also growing by leaps and bounds. So no, we haven't seen any recession problems.

Now, I do see reports on the news all the time about the housing crisis. For us we see this a silver lining as housing here in the city is rediclously overpriced, it's just now starting to become somewhat reasonable. However, at this time it's still a way better value to rent than to own a house, thus we stay in this rental house, but if the real estate market continues to drop, we might consider looking to purchase a house.

Should we buy the house we live in, we would expect to pay close to $300K, say a mortage payment of close to $2K a month... my rent is $800, thus we remain renters.

I couldn't be happier about the "recession". I feel bad for others that seem to be having a real hard time, but it certainly hasn't affected us.

[Shellie]

My dh got a 5.57% raise yesterday. He also a bonus which is equal to almost one month's pre-tax pay. (But even with all of this we are still in terrible shape.) They also told him not to expect the bonus next year. He works in IT in the banking industry and they've lost a lot of $$ with all the home foreclosures and almost cut bonuses this year.

I worry about the recession mostly because dh and I have a couple really new small businesses. One is in a completely oversaturated market and it's hard to compete.

Also, gas and grocery prices where we are seem insane.

[lucyem]

It seems to me the media is just adding fuel to the fire and making people panic. Recessions happen, they suck, but they have happened before and will again. But listening to the news makes it sound like its the end of the world.

[Tradd]

Originally Posted by lucyem

It seems to me the media is just adding fuel to the fire and making people panic. Recessions happen, they suck, but they have happened before and will again. But listening to the news makes it sound like its the end of the world.

I listen to Dave Ramsey on a regular basis (you can tell how things are going by what people call in about), as well as to NPR. NPR's Marketplace program is excellent for news on business, the economy, personal finance. You get the daily podcast free off iTunes. It's 30 minutes M-F. There's also a 1 hour program (weekends) called Marketplace Money (iTunes podcast, too). I knew there was going to be trouble back in August when the subprime meltdown began.

www.marketplace.org.

You can also get programs right off Marketplace's website if you don't use iTunes.

The media is just not making people panic. The Fed chair said things were NOT going well in his testimony to Congress in the past week or so. This was addressed on the Marketplace program because lots of people were emailing, saying that the coverage was making things worse.

[alicia622]

I have noticed some food prices going up- the one that always shocks me are eggs- they have doubled in price. Of course they are still a bretty good deal for protein. The other thing I've noticed is a real panic in my field- social work. There have been crazy changes this past year or so and the last place I worked has laid off a lot of people. DH works for this complany and we are really thinking he is going to be one of the next ones to go. My new company has been working hard to stay on top of all the changes but really you have no idea what's going to happen from day to day- if they will still break even with all the cuts and changes to continue to provide the services. We just got our super big tax refund and while I had plans for most of the money, I'm thinking we should put most of it into savings just in case we are hit by the lay offs.

[MistyB]

I can say that I have lived at both ends of the spectrum in the last 24 months. In Michigan, so many people were unemployed, fearing being laid off, trying to sell their home, fearing for their economic future. It took us 13 months to sell an 18 month old house at a loss of 40k. My husband was given a large severance package by his employer to get him to leave his job.

We moved to metro Houston. It seems like there is an abundance of jobs. ALL of my husbands associates are in need of employees. I don't know anyone that is unemployed. And based on sales trends in my neighborhood, I could sell my house easily within a month and likely break even aside from real estate costs. And tons of previously owned homes are selling quickly and people are buying new houses everyday. The inventory of houses here can't keep up with the demand yet the housing market is very reasonably priced. Not that way in all areas of Houston but it it that way where we happen to live.

[KariM]

DH received a 3% pay raise this year (the raises come in Oct each year). We learned in December that our healthcare premiums and co-pays were going up by 10%.

We've seen increases in electricity costs, natural gas costs, property taxes, gasoline, food, and probably other categories that I can't even recall right now.

We're very very fortunate in that we have some wiggle room in our budget to accomodate the increases. There could well be a time when we don't, though.

I'm changing our spending habits because I'm cautious about the future - not because some economist or news reporter is telling me that the handwriting is on the wall. I can read and don't need someone to read it for me.

[timneh_mom]

Michigan has been in a recession forever. So it doesn't surprise me that everywhere else is feeling it too. People have been living off credit for a long time now and taking on more debt than they should in other ways.

Our costs have been steadily going up for a while now too, as benefits decrease - fortunately we don't have a lot of expenses and DH is an engineer, so we are easily making it on one income. But, our house payment is low and we aren't extravagant. We drive cars til they die, and replace other big ticket items very infrequently. (I think we bought furniture maybe 3 times in the past 12 years!)

So, I guess I have seen it coming without having to watch the news. The news has just confirmed my feelings.

[timneh_mom]

Originally Posted by MistyB

I can say that I have lived at both ends of the spectrum in the last 24 months. In Michigan, so many people were unemployed, fearing being laid off, trying to sell their home, fearing for their economic future. It took us 13 months to sell an 18 month old house at a loss of 40k. My husband was given a large severance package by his employer to get him to leave his job.

We moved to metro Houston. It seems like there is an abundance of jobs. ALL of my husbands associates are in need of employees. I don't know anyone that is unemployed. And based on sales trends in my neighborhood, I could sell my house easily within a month and likely break even aside from real estate costs. And tons of previously owned homes are selling quickly and people are buying new houses everyday. The inventory of houses here can't keep up with the demand yet the housing market is very reasonably priced. Not that way in all areas of Houston but it it that way where we happen to live.

Wow, is that amazing! I could never recommend that anyone move to Michigan at this point...

[mamamilkers]

My parents are moving to MI, but my dad works from home for a company that I don't believe is MI based.

I wouldn't have known about the recession, either. DF's job situation is looking better all of the time and we haven't spent any more on groceries. Maybe a little more on gas, but it hasn't affected us much.

I think I will consider us lucky! I had no idea people were already getting hit so hard. We also aren't homeowners or getting a loan any time soon, so that stuff doesn't affect us.

[Belleweather]

I've been obsessed with the housing bubble forever, ever since we were trying to decide whether to buy or not while we were in grad school -- my mom was going to put a down payment on a condo for us, and we'd handle the mortgage instead of rent, but I started researching and realized that it was a very bad idea.

Anyway, seeing the writing on the wall was what led us to change our plans -- I took a job with a very ancient and well-capitalized insurance company rather than temping and waiting for something better, and DH is going back to school to work in Health Care. We haven't felt much of the effects of the recession yet, because we worked to insulate ourselves from it. But I can sure SEE them in my community.

[PJJ]

Definite recession

Hi,
I quit my permanent full time job a few weeks back due to a dysfunctional (beyond anything I had seen in all my working years(27)). The only thing I could find was a contract job (part-time) and I am in the health care/government field.There is a freeze at the state, federal, and local level. It was a horrible time to quit--but I could not continue mentally.
My DH received the smallest raise (3%) in the last 4 years and he is really worried for his job. I am thinking that DAVE RAMSEY is so right. We are now working on that emergency fund. I am thankful that we only have mortgage debt right now. And I have friends so far that have been laid off. I think it is a little worse now that Y2k bust. From 2000-2002 my husband lost 2 different jobs. The only reason I think it is worst now is that it seem to be industry specific, and now it seems to touch health care and government--which once was recession proof.

Good luck Mamas!